The following statement is attributable to Ryan Kiesel, Executive Director:

“We welcome the Speaker’s prompt response to this matter. Speaker McCall’s statement is reassuring to all Oklahomans but especially all LGBTQ Oklahomans. Given, however, that the email was distributed with language that indicated that it was sent at the direction of the Speaker’s office and Speaker McCall’s willingness to allow anti-LBGTQ legislation to advance this session, LGBTQ Oklahomans and their allies are to be forgiven for assuming this email originated from the highest levels of the legislature.

It is not enough to say that LBGTQ Oklahomans are welcome at the Capitol. Of course they are welcome at the Capitol. It is their building as much as it as any other Oklahomans’. To welcome them to the Capitol is little consolation to LGBTQ Oklahoman who, if SB 197 had become law, would have been unwelcome in many other places in Oklahoma. If Speaker McCall wants a truly welcoming state, then he needs to commit that hateful and discriminatory legislation will have no safe harbor in the House of Representatives as long as he is Speaker of the House.”